Tattoos on the soul
Welcome to the very first post on a brand-new blog. My name is Heidi De Jonge and I am the pastor for discernment at Calvin Theological Seminary. I’ve started this blog in order to facilitate a conversation for all of us who are in the midst of discerning God’s leading in our lives. I will be posting regularly: posing questions, sharing resources, and searching for wisdom.
I invite you to plumb the depths with me – to ask questions of each other and to share your thoughts and your experiences.
I begin with a quote that I heard on Talk of the Nation on NPR yesterday afternoon…
Paul Roe, a tattoo artist in Washington DC, smoothly defended his trade by saying that “irreversible decisions are good for the soul.”
Irreversible decisions are good for the soul.
I suppose he meant that it is good for a person to take a risk – to cross a line which, once crossed, cannot be uncrossed. Getting a tattoo marks your body, and perhaps your soul, in a defining and irreversible way.
And I began to wonder. What other kinds of decisions are irreversible? Suicide, crossing the Rubicon…
But what kinds of decisions are reversible? Don’t all decisions, like tattoos on the body, leave marks on our souls?
What are your thoughts? Your questions? Your experiences?
Some tattoos have absolutely no meaning and are a result of a whim by the person sporting that tattoo. It has been my experience that many other people have tattoos that represent to them a life altering experience, moment, or event.
My step daughter has 2 tattoos; one of a butterfly with a banner stating her mother’s date of birth and date of her death and the other a heart decorated with stars and strips in memory of 9-11.
My cousin has numerous tattoos. One she got because she liked the design at the time, another is a symbol of the meaning of her name, and I think both mark chapters of her life that she was moving on from. The most recent tattoo was similar to one a close friend got at the same time; to show they were sisters in a way.
There are so many events that mark the soul. They are the huge events that when looked back upon you can say with all certainty that God was and is watching over me.
The biggest for me was following stay in Australia. When I had to leave my heart nearly broke and I got very self destructive. I remember at the time I felt that God had turned his back on me so why shouldn’t I do the same? He forced me to open my eyes and know His love by blessing me with and entrusting Mandi to me.
I was only 18 and remember when I found out I was pregnant with her. It was like my eyes opened. I never knew that love could be as great as the love I was feeling toward my unborn child and to think that God loved me more than that was nearly impossible to imagine.
The most recent one has been Samantha being diagnosed with cancer at just 9 months of age. Was it a punishment for past sins? A wake-up call, for not being a better Christian? Or as I prefer to believe, the cancer just happened and God once again reminded me of His immeasurable love.
The events that mark the soul are the ones that keep me going when I feel that I cannot.
They are the ones that are never reversible and regardless of how bittersweet they may be we would never want to undo. I didn’t want to be 18, single, and pregnant, but I could never imagine life without Mandi. I would never wish cancer on a baby, but would rather have Samantha as my daughter for a brief time than to never have known her at all.
Karla
You ask: “But what kinds of decisions are reversible?”
Every decision we make is irreversible as each decision changes that person we once were- never to become again. That is not to say that we cannot make a choice or take an action that counters a previous decision but that does not make the decision reversible. Each decision and choice we make affects not only the whole of our self but everyone and everything surrounding us. We cannot take these changes back.
If you lose your temper at or with a person you can later apologize but that does not reverse your decision to lose your temper (and yes, it is a decision) any more than changing your mind reverses a previous thought or idea. From the moment we think of what we are going to do, we can never return ourselves to our same state BEFORE we thought those things. That is why even thinking of sin (be it murder, adultery etc) you have sinned: because you can never reclaim your “self” as it was before that thought.
What kinds of decisions are reversible? None. Nothing is reversible; each thought, each action- no matter how minuscule- changes us.
If every decision is irreversible, which I believe to be so, then the question remains of what is to be done with these ‘tattoos’ on our souls? Will we hide those markings that are reminders of regrets and mistakes? Or will we wear them with a humble pride as emblems of grace and forgiveness, that even an irreversible scar can be made beautiful by our Lord?
Antonia, my personal opinion is you must look at them with reverence; when my mind is cast back to my past life and the choices I made I cannot be angry at that. I am humbled. You used the perfect word, Antonia, in grace.
When, as a child I would skin my knee at play my mother was quick to kiss and bandage it better. When the Lord blesses us with His Grace it is a kiss to our scars and the Gospel serves as the bandage.
My ‘tattoos’ are not a source of discomfort any longer (at least not totally) but are a testament of His Love. Do not hide your tattoos, Antonia, but come to peace with them. It’s my opinion the hardest part of forgiveness is self. I had found that Christ forgive me yet I fought and struggled why I could not do that of myself. It is because I was shameful of my tattoos and tried to hide them.
The Lord did not forgive us excluding our faults but INCLUDING our faults. If we hide our markings of mistakes and regrets after we have been forgiven and shown His Grace then how different are we than His first children that hide from His voice in the garden? In my opinion it shows shame to hide them, Antonia.
sorry for the typos.. was neglecting work to respond and typed with haste.
irreversible decisions are a result of the fall. If there were no such thing as irreversible decisions, we would be perfectly content with life. As it is, I have not met anyone like that, though I am sure all kinds of people have claimed that… Buddha comes to mind (bald, fat guy with no family or friends who died and became one with nothinginess, who wouldn’t be content, right????).
In my experience it has been good to take risks, and I take them quite often, usually calculated but not always. I consider my coming to Calvin this fall a risk for me in contrast to the majority of students there, who might not find their going to Calvin a risk. I have had many unique experiences, being a paramedic as one of them. I have made decisions that have affected other peoples lives that can not be changed. i am married and it is one of the best decisions I’ve made. When we speak of “irreversible” though I feel as if there is a bad taste in my mouth, as if the word is dirty. All decisions are irreversible but I would not want to reverse them anyway. There are some decisons I wish I could change, take back, and start over. Two days ago i was talking with a complete stranger but we connected because i said something outloud that I did not mean to say, “Youth is waisted on the young, if only I knew then what I know now, etc..” (flashback: totally a Senior moment) the complete stranger looked at me with eyes of endearment, as if I read her mind. Regret or “irreversible decisions” like tatoos leave their marks on us and like tatoos seem worse the older we get and the thinner our skin is (metaphors…uggghhh never been to good at them…) . These marks stay with us to remind us every morning when we look at the rising sun, of the hope of Christ and why we need him. My regrets, “Marks” are burned into me but sometimes at moments of deep struggle within myself, though the marks are painful they help me get through those hard moments. It sounds a little wierd (it wouldn’t be the first time) but when i am at my weakest, and if I understand scripture correctly, that is when Christ is strongest in me. Difficulties in life are plenty but when I remember old struggles, regrets, marks of my decisions or other peoples decisions, My eyes stop focusing on myself, I get down on my knees and come to say ‘Abba Father’. Sometimes some of us, including myself, think that irreversible decisions or anything can be a burden but sometimes they are the life-line we need to come back to our first love. In Christ Rodolfo
Rodolfo,
Buddhas are typically not fat- their bulging statues are meant to represent the fullness of their spirit.
Scott, Thank you for your comment.
I have taken several religion courses, enough to know the symbolism present in the Buddhist religion and their statue representation of Buddha. Symbolism is rich and meaningful to Buddhists. I know that the Buddha statue is culturally a mark of identity as well. The recognition of the physical appearance of the Buddha statue as fat, in fact, was to represent the idea of being “perfectly content with life” in the prior sentence which is analogous to “represent[ing] the fulness of their spirit” which is what you pointed out in your comment. Maybe this was not clear. I simply wanted to make a point about some people who have given me the impression of claiming to find contentedness (if that can be considered a word).
The Buddha statue only represents to me the opportunity to befriend and share the Gospel with a Buddhist (Acknowledging that any person with a Buddhist statue has a need for Christ) . Maybe, the Buddha statue can be used as a tool to bring someone to Christ?hmmmm….
Are there any other parts I can clear up? I can see that from your comment you only wished to serve and inform me or understand the comment better. I thank you for that. Sincerely Rodolfo
Thank you all (Rodolfo, Karla, Scott, Antonia) for entering the discussion - for bringing your insight and your experiences to the subject of our marked souls.
One of the first (and then most enduring things) I learned in my undergraduate work at Dordt College was that I do not ‘have’ my soul, I ‘am’ my soul. Now, the difference between ‘have’ and ‘am’ is a whole new discussion, but regardless of the fact that I’ve thought about this a lot in those years since 1995, if we think of ourselves as souls and our decisions as soul markers - our decisions are self-markers. The self is an amalgamation of those defining decisions.
Your life is a sum of your choices - Albert Camus.
And these choices, these directions, these marks and scars are (as Karla so lovingly notes) evidences, testimonies of God’s watchful care over us. God has brought us into and through and past valleys and mountains…. Soli Deo Gloria
I’ve been thinking a lot the last few years about real tattoos- especially as I headed into the world of Calvin Seminary and the future ministry, how we are perceived as people but also as leaders of the Church, etc. One of the things that has always nagged at me is how permanent a tattoo is. Although there are ways to “cover them up” or “laser them off”, you dedicate yourself to a message with ink on your body.
It’s a big committment. And I agree with many of you- once we make a choice we are changed forever. And I agree that there are many times that we want to cover up our “tattoos” of the past because we regret what they may say about us. At the same time, we may wear them with prideful humility (not an oxy moron, I hope you get what I’m trying to convey) and hope that others can experience the same thing we do with our tattoo.
I guess that this is where my two streams of thought are colliding: Most of the time, “tattoos” (both in the real, ink on the body, and in the experiential, things that have marked me in life, sense) are extremely personal; but their messages are extremely public.
How do we balance these two extremes that seem to represent so many aspects of the ministry?
Camus? Oh my! The Fall should be required reading. You are exactly right about you are your soul. The spirit is what we posess and the soul is who we are. People hastenly interchange spirit and soul but they should not be interchanged as they are two different things.
An easy way to seperate the two (for me at least) is your soul is the mind and spirit the heart.
People would also assume that the soul and the spirit are in a symbotitic relationship but I do not believe that to be the case. Too much evidence to suggest otherwise!
I digress; as you said it is a whole ‘nother discussion. I will say that it is through our spirit that we are saved and learn to embrace the Lord and not our soul.